3D reconstruction of coronary arteries and atherosclerotic plaques based on computed tomography angiography images

Publication date: February 2018 Source:Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, Volume 40 Author(s): Vassiliki I. Kigka, George Rigas, Antonis Sakellarios, Panagiotis Siogkas, Ioannis O. Andrikos, Themis P. Exarchos, Dimitra Loggitsi, Constantinos D. Anagnostopoulos, Lampros K. Michalis, Danilo Neglia, Gualtriero Pelosi, Oberdan Parodi, Dimitrios I. Fotiadis The purpose of this study is to present a new semi-automated methodology for three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of coronary arteries and their plaque morphology using Computed Tomography Angiography (CTA) images. The methodology is summarized in seven stages: pre-processing of the acquired CTA images, extraction of the vessel tree centerline, estimation of a weight function for lumen, outer wall and calcified plaque, lumen segmentation, outer wall segmentation, plaque detection, and finally 3D surfaces construction. The methodology was evaluated using both expert’s manual annotations and estimations of a recently presented Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS) reconstruction method. As far as the manual annotation validation process is concerned, the mean value of the comparison metrics for the 3D segmentation were 0.749 and 1.746 for the Dice coefficient and Hausdorff distance, respectively. On the other hand, the correlation coefficients for the degree of stenosis 1, the degree of stenosis 2, the plaque burden, the minimal lumen area and the minimal lumen diameter, when comparing the derived from the prop...
Source: Biomedical Signal Processing and Control - Category: Biomedical Science Source Type: research